Recalling Victory, Recounting Greatness
Second World War Remembrance in Xi Jinping's China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23201441 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vincent K L Chang (0000-0003-0234-0036, Leiden University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 248 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1152-1173 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The China Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-4439 • E-ISSN: 1468-2648 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0305741021000497 |
| OpenAlex | W3175272109 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 21 |
The recent surge in public remembrance of the Second World War in China has been substantially undergirded by a centrally planned and systematically implemented discursive shift which has remained overlooked in the literature. This study examines the revised official narrative by drawing on three cases from China's school curriculum, museums and formal diplomacy. It finds that the once dominant trope of “national victimization” no longer represents the main thrust in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rhetoric on the Second World War. Under Xi Jinping, this has been replaced by a self-assertive and aspirational narrative of “national victory” and “national greatness,” designed to enhance Beijing's legitimacy and advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives. By emphasizing national unity and CCP–KMT cooperation, the new narrative offers an inclusive and unifying interpretation of China's war effort in which the victory in 1945 has come to rival the 1949 revolution as the critical turning point towards “national rejuvenation.” The increasingly Sino-centric and centrally controlled narrative holds implicit warnings to those challenging Beijing's claim to greatness.
Art · Beijing · China · Communism · Greatness · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Victory · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Why does distant suffering matter? Discursive domestication in Chinese mainstream media and social media on the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum
Agentic and Communal Collective Narcissism
‘We resolve our own sorrows’
China's First Recital and Recording Pianist Ding Shande
L’éducation au patriotisme selon la République populaire de Chine
Repairing the past
Anniversary Journalism in China
Multiple voices, shared space
Reframing educational governance and its crisis through the ‘totally pedagogised society’
Mnemonic Construction, Transgenerational Discourses, and “Film Generations”
Totalitarian influence and war support in China
Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia
Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Museums in China
Using the Past to Legitimise the Present
Research Note Changed by War
Xi Jinping’s ‘Major Country Diplomacy’
Owning up to the past
Bloody Memories
Remembrance of the Nanjing Massacre in the Globalised Era
China's New Nationalism
National Humiliation, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory
A State-Led Nationalism
Local museum, national history
Doing some things' in the Xi Jinping era
Remembering the past to secure the present
Remember History, Not Hatred
China's New Remembering of World War II
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |